TFY-515 Milling &Drilling Machine

I had kept the Van Norman mill on an old heavy duty cart so I could move it around in the shop. We rolled it out to a level area in the driveway. Then we used my old lifting arbor and two 1-1/2 ton chain hoists to lift it about 16" off the cart.

We backed a trailer under the mill and lowered it down.

We used four ratchet straps on the mill to secure it and off it went to its new home.

The mill/drill needed some attention. I cleaned the grease and grime off the mill with WD-40, some rags and a small stainless steel brush.

There were still some pitted areas and heavy rust on some of the articulating arms. I used WD-40 and 400 grit sand paper to clean those areas up. It worked great. The really bad looking brown section of the upright tube below was wet with oil and sanded rust. A wipe with a rag and the tube was smooth and not bright, but shiny.

I used the same process to get the rust off the work surfaces.

It took a lot of cleaning, but it looks much better now.

I finally figured out how to get the cutting tool collet to release after reading on the internet. Once the bolt sticking up on top of the machine was loosened, I unscrewed it a couple turns and lightly tapped it with a brass mallet. The collet came free.

The speed change door was broken.

I had a piece of plexiglass that was big enough to make the new door. I carefully removed the piece of old sticker on the door and glued it to the new door.

I adjusted the table slides to remove some of the slop. Then I adjusted the tilt forward and aft. I got it as close as I could without using a tool by adjusting until the surfacing mill was nice and square to the worktable.

Now I wanted to see how well the mill worked. I needed some square nuts to go into the "T" slots. I made three out of some 1/4" plate, but that takes much too long. I had a few that were too large to fit the slots, but realized I could mill them to fit.

I used the three nuts I made to mount this drill press vise on the worktable. The piece of wood is to space the nut in the vise. Then I cut about 1/16" off the surface.

This is the first cut I made with the mill.

I also had to cut about 1/16" off each side to get them to slide into the "T" slots. After cleaning up the edges on the grinder and wire wheel, they fit nicely. I added some new bolts and washers and now I had 10 new keepers.

The old vise I was using was really sloppy. It was just a cheaply made piece anyway. So, I decided to try and improve it. I removed the slide keeper and took some metal off the slide bottom to improve the fit. I used the small cheap vise to hold it while I milled.

I milled the top surface of the jaws just for fun.

Then I milled the upper and lower surfaces of the vise.

Now the vise works much better. Not great, but much better!

All I did to the small vise was mill the top of the jaws for fun. It was reasonably tight already.

The mill/drill uses R8 collets. I ordered a small set from MSC along with some two flute mill ends. I will be able to do more projects once they arrive.

I really like this mill! Thanks John!